Shelter
by Vampire00Diaries
Summary: Stefan can no longer deny the fact that his humanity still exists. He knows that letting everything back in is the only option, but how will he survive the guilt and pain it brings? With the help of Katherine. Oneshot Post 3x09


_I find shelter in this way_

_Under cover, hide away…_

Stefan let out a shaky breath as he finally took a seat on a shaky wooden chair. The stone floors of the basement screeched eerily when he scooted back. He took in the room, appreciating the dim light that barely came through from a small window. It seemed that a little over a day ago everything was as normal as it could be: Elena was getting ready for homecoming because Caroline was forcing her to go, Damon was growing closer to her, and Stefan himself was carelessly content.

Now, everything was the opposite of normal. Here he sat, in some old house in the middle of nowhere, with Katherine pacing upstairs in the kitchen as she listened closely for danger. Coffins filled the basement, daggered originals lying in them. He had just hung up the phone after talking with Klaus; he knew the ancient vampire would be looking for revenge now. It was all part of Katherine's complicated plan to kill him. They would get as far away as they could during the day and rest during the nights. When it was time, they would wake Elijah.

Stefan thought about everything, everything he could without _feeling. _He made sure to avoid any memories of Damon or Elena that crossed his mind, for he was sure it would lead him to the one thing he was now afraid of most: his humanity.

_Can you hear when I say__  
><em>_I have never felt this way…_

Katherine's words continued to linger in Stefan's mind: _humanity is a vampire's greatest weakness. _He knew it, too, after all those tragic years spent falling in and out of the clutches of human blood. So many tears had been shed, so much hope had been used up… He had always pulled through somehow, but its memory always remained, haunting him, _teasing _him until all of that hope and pain was wasted.

He always ended up losing himself once again in the end.

Stefan contemplated this some, absently drumming his fingertips over his jean-clad thighs. His expression was pensive and distant until he came to the dull conclusion that he wasn't strong enough. All those years spent fighting were a total waste; he was never strong enough to completely assuage his strong hunger for potent, rich blood. So why even try anymore? He knew this never ending battle would forever be existent, so why even try?

That was Stefan's new philosophy: Why try if you know you're going to fail anyway?

Suddenly Damon's voice filled his mind. _You really have given up, haven't you? _

_Maybe I had said something that was wrong__  
><em>_Can I make it better with the lights turned on?_

Stefan's gaze filled with self hatred when he thought about this, drowning in his negative thoughts. He did give up; he gave up on Damon, on Elena, on himself, so they gave up on him. He should have been fine with that, but why did it… _hurt?_

"Someone looks broody." Katherine's smooth voice cut through the silence like a sharp knife. Stefan lifted his head and met her brown eyes, shaking his head. There she stood in the doorway, her lips hardly turned up in a sly grin.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

With a huff, Katherine crossed her arms over her chest, eyeing Stefan intently. "You know, Stefan… Your humanity does _not _make you a bad person. You're just going to be a confused mess until you figure out what the hell you want."

His eyebrows raised in confusion. "What do you mean?" Stefan averted Katherine's interrogative eyes and stood up, slowly making his way to the other end of the room. His fingertips slowly traced the top of Elijah's coffin so it seemed that he didn't care about a thing she was saying. _Seemed. _He was just pretending now.

"Oh, please!" she started. "You know _exactly_ what I mean, Stefan. A lot of people think that our humanity's like a switch: you can turn it on and off as you please. It's only black and white."

Stefan shrugged. "Well, isn't it?"

Shaking her head, Katherine scoffed. "We both know that is _not _true. It's never just black and white, Stefan. There's always gray. Always. You can deny it all you want, but you're feeling _something! _Whether it's rage or hatred, you're feeling! And I can see it in your eyes that you know it. You just won't admit it to yourself. You're _afraid _of your humanity_. _Fear is an emotion."

Stefan clenched his fists. "I'm not in denial!" he shouted, glaring at Katherine. She simply smirked and shrugged. The raising of his voice was enough to prove her point. Stefan instantly calmed himself down. "I'm not afraid of anything."

"You're scared of yourself."

_Could I be, was I there  
>It felt so crystal in the air…<em>

Stefan was past frustrated at this point; he was aggravated. "Screw you," he muttered to Katherine, attempting to push past her though she stopped him and pushed him harshly against the wall.

"Damon...," Katherine started to say when he averted his gaze. "You saved Damon's life. You didn't have to." No response. "That's caring to me… and if you just keep faking this now it'll eat you up." No response. She gritted her teeth. "So you're just planning to leave your brother alone forever then?"

"It's best if I keep away from everyone I know," he finally replied.

"You mean everyone you care about?" Katherine corrected, hoping this was actually getting somewhere. Finally Stefan's hazel eyes met her own. They were filled with a vulnerability that she had never seen before, so she continued. "You mean Elena, whose heart you broke over and over again by shoving all of this in her face? You mean _Damon_, who went through all of this against Klaus to save your ass? Well guess what, Stefan… now they hate you. I hope you got what you wanted." Her voice was harsh, cold as stone, and she slowly released him. Stefan was silent, frozen. And Katherine knew that she had finally gotten to him.

Because he was crying.

_I still want to drown whenever you leave  
>Please teach me gently how to breathe…<em>

Katherine stood rigid as she carefully watched Stefan. Either he hadn't noticed the tears streaming down his face or was too stunned to react to them. Very, very slowly, Stefan lifted his hand to his cheek and pulled his fingertips away. With great hesitation, he looked down at his fingers, confirming his fears: they were glistening with fresh tears. Tears of redemption.

He couldn't deny this anymore, not when he couldn't hide the dry sobs escaping his lips. He was feeling pain, anger, hatred… he was _feeling _everything. He felt exposed, weak… but he couldn't do this to himself anymore. He couldn't deny who he truly was, couldn't bury it beneath layers of icy detachment. Not anymore.

And when Katherine barely mumbled, "Let it all back in," he lost it completely.

_And I'll cross oceans like never before  
>So you can feel the way I feel it too<em>

He let _everything _back in: the faces of every person he had ever killed, the desperation he heard in their family's cries. The lives he had taken for the enjoyment he got out of it, the heartbreak he caused for the people he cared about. The way he took human life and turned it into a sadistic game of chance. Suddenly overwhelmed with grief and despair, Stefan collapsed on the icy stone floor, incoherent pleas and sobs rushing from his mouth.

Katherine watched as the man before her broke down completely, bringing his knees to his chest as if his body was burning from the inside out. Though in a way, she thought that it was. The guilt was eating him alive.

With a shout, Stefan gripped his head, banging it against the floor roughly. "Make it stop," he cried. "Please make it stop!" His heart was beating rapidly and he knew his sanity had currently been lost. The tears wouldn't stop; when he closed his eyes, he saw Elena crying and Damon furiously tearing the boardinghouse apart. When he opened his eyes, he saw men and women, ages fifteen to fifty, crying for their lives as he drained the blood from their bodies.

The guilt of what he had done was too much. Just as a wave of depression and grief subsided, he was hit with another one. Stefan was drowning in a sea of pain.

Making sure not to make things any worse, Katherine carefully slid down the wall until she was next to Stefan. With a touch that was much too gentle for her, she pulled his head onto her lap and allowed him to cry.

"I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry," he continued to repeat.

"Shhh. It's okay, Stefan. It's okay."

_And I'll mirror images back at you  
>So you can see the way I feel it too…<em>

Twenty four hours.

It had been exactly twenty four hours since Stefan had allowed all of his feelings to come rushing back in. Life no longer felt like an option to him, not after everything he had done. Stefan wanted nothing more than just to disappear from this mad world he lived in and end not only the suffering felt, but the suffering he had caused. It only felt fair to him that his life would be sacrificed for all of the people he killed, to ensure the world would be rid of the villain he was, that it would never happen again. The blood would no longer be on his hands.

Unfortunately, Katherine would not let him leave her sight. He _hated _her for it. He felt as if he had already died on the inside; he felt like a shell of the person he once was. He couldn't get two words out without completely breaking down, and when his eyes weren't spilling over with tears he was sitting on the bed in the master bedroom, staring blankly ahead, overwhelmed in thought.

Then there had been those moments that haunted Katherine the most. Every hour or so, Stefan pulled out his journal, deep in concentration, and began to write frantically. With short and rushed strokes, Stefan recorded name after name. Soon, Katherine realized it was all of the people he had killed within the past few months. Every time he finished writing a name, he would mutter a very quiet, "I'm sorry," and continue to record once again. All the while tears would flood from his eyes and he would write harder and harder until the pen broke the paper and his crying had turned into complete hysteria. At one point, Katherine couldn't take it so she tore the journal out of Stefan's hands, hoping he would shout at her, give her some sort of verbal response to let her know this hadn't shattered him completely, that he still had his sanity. Instead, he fell to the floor and began scratching names into the tiles, so violently that within thirty seconds his fingers were bleeding.

Now here he sat on the edge of the bed, thinking about nothing and everything. Katherine, who had been watching him nonstop since the previous night, took a seat beside him. Of course he did not even notice her presence, so she grabbed his shoulder.

"Stefan."

He flinched and turned. For the first time in what felt like ages, his glassy hazel eyes met hers. Katherine sighed in relief. "Katherine," he barely breathed. He opened his mouth again to speak but she placed a finger over his lips.

"If you say 'I'm sorry' one more time, I will tear this damn house down," she cut him off with a roll of the eyes. Stefan closed his mouth and meekly nodded, not even feeling like forcing a laugh at the moment. Katherine turned forward and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "You still in there?"

This time he actually laughed, a low, broken sound that came from the back of his throat. Still, it was a laugh. She considered that progress. "Yeah, I am." He forced a smile. "How long was I out?"

Katherine raised a brow. "Out? As in breaking down and being a hum- _vampire _zombie? Since last night."

Stefan nodded and let out a sigh. His expression was pained and it took him a long moment before he spoke again. "It happens every single time. It all… it just becomes too much. Feeling everything all at once. You shut down completely. You feel as if death would be too easy."

"You still want to die?"

Stefan's response came quickly without hesitation. "Absolutely."

"Well, you're not." Katherine's words were sharp and she looked at Stefan, making sure to meet his eyes. "I don't care what the hell you try. You're not going anywhere. You got it?"

"Besides to hell," he muttered, staring to the floor.

"See?" Katherine said playfully. "Why on earth would you want to die if you know you're headed to hell anyways? Might as well just live forever so you don't have to worry about it." She shrugged and smirked a bit.

Stefan laughed again at this, the smallest hint of a genuine grin playing at the ends of his lips. "Nice try."

She shook her head, rolling her eyes. She couldn't help but feel a pang in her chest whenever she looked at Stefan. He was so lost, so broken. For once, she felt completely and utterly helpless.

_No matter how easy it is to turn it off, it just keeps trying to fight its way back in. Sometimes I let it. _

This was one of those moments. Stefan needed someone, he needed _her_, and for once Katherine wasn't going to let her ego get in the way. "Are you okay?"

Stefan shook his head and sighed heavily. "No." His voice cracked in a way that let her know he was once again fighting back tears in an attempt to be strong. After a moment of contemplating, Katherine wrapped her arms around Stefan and pulled him to her. She knew the act was very out of character for her, but she didn't care. It could bother her later.

The second Stefan's head rested on her shoulder, salty tears begin spilling over his face once again, body trembling as the weapon that was his mind began to overwhelm him once again. Katherine merely held him closer to her, closing her eyes. "Concentrate on my heartbeat, Stefan. Okay? Just think about that."

He followed her orders, his own eyes drifting closed as he listened to the steady beats of life rhythmically pulsing through Katherine's body. He counted each heartbeat: _One, two, three…_, until he was finally asleep.

Just a moment before he surrendered himself over to rest, Stefan muttered two words to her that gave her hope. He didn't tell her that he was sorry.

He said, "Thank you."

_Maybe I had said something that was wrong_

_Can I make it better with the lights turned on?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Thank you all for reading this fic! This was just a oneshot, and the song I used throughout was called "Shelter" by Birdy. I hope you enjoyed it! I haven't written Steferine in a while so I hope it was alright! Please review telling me your opinions on it! Thursday's episode inspired me so much to write a fic about Stefan and his humanity, and even Katherine's humanity. I thought it was absolutely **__**genius**__** that the writers made Katherine the one to really bring sense to Stefan. It was incredible!**_

_**This is one of the sadder/darker fics that I've written so I really hope you liked it. It's different than anything I've ever done before! Please leave me a review to tell me how I did! Love it, hate it? Let me know! :)**_

_**Xoxo**_

_**-Sara**_


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